Cold Cheese
by Exploded Pen
Summary: Its the biggest Cheese crisis since The Great Cheese Heist, but can the crew of the Enterprise save themselves from a fate worst than death? Going...Cold Cheese!


**000 Disclaimer, I own nothing, nothing at all 000 Well here it is folks, a sequel to The Great Cheese Heist, and proof that I'm still around, albeit trying to juggle many things at once :D Huge thanks to The Libran Iniquity, she knows why :P Anyhoo, enjoy! 000**

_Captain's Log: Stardate…unknown:_

_It's been two weeks since we had to start rationing the cheese, but now we have to admit defeat. Starfleet were appraised of our situation and cheese is on the way, but it won't arrive for another two weeks…_

_And the cheese is nearly gone…_

"Calm down!" Archer yelled, banging his fist on the table stunning the senior officers into silence. "Let Chef speak!"

Chef coughed once, before nervously glancing at his pad. "It seems that the last of the cheese reserves were…ah…liberated from the storeroom last night."

There was a shocked gasp that echoed round the room. "Why wasn't I informed!" Malcolm ground out.

Archer shot him a warning look before turning back to Chef. "So, how much is left?"

"Just the squirty cheese," came the whispered reply.

There was a scraping sound and several chairs were pushed back. Chef backed away quickly till he found the wall and realised he could go no further.

"Squirty cheese," Trip murmured faintly, leaning against the table for support.

Malcolm laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, everyone knew the hell Trip had gone through after being assaulted by Rostov armed with squirty cheese. Trip twitched nervously but gave Malcolm a grateful look.

Archer sighed. "Chef, I'm putting you under protection of the security officers for the time being. I don't think it's safe for you to wander the ship anymore. There are going to be a lot of people going through cold cheese looking for someone to blame." Of course, a quick sidelong glance at his armoury officer made Archer amend his statement – mentally of course. It was a well known fact that Malcolm's staff were the biggest cheese fanatics on the ship, but at least Chef wouldn't be harmed by the _rest_ of the crew.

"Actually sir," Travis piped up, "Perhaps Chef's time would better be suited the galley where he could try and whip up something cheese-like. Like a placebo."

There was a stunned silence. "Did this happen during your boomer days?" Trip asked finally.

"No, I just thought of it actually!" said Travis brightly. He grinned

There was another long pause. The others exchanged bewildered looks. "Just to clarify, this isn't a gem of wisdom from your boomer days?" said Archer a barely concealed look of shock on his face. "Because it's usually a tried and tested idea…"

Travis' happy grin faded. "No, I thought of it myself…" he sounded hurt.

"And it's a brilliant idea!" Archer blinked and turned to the others. "It has to be the Water Polo, I showed him Water Polo a little while ago which he really seemed to enjoy –" At this point Travis paled dramatically and began to twitch intermittently. Hoshi moved to comfort him. "- so maybe we should make Water Polo mandatory for all personnel?"

For the third time that meeting there was another long pause. "I think," T'Pol began delicately, ignoring a quietly whimpering Travis off to her left, "that more study is required before you reach a definite conclusion, Captain."

"I'll return to the galley then, shall I?" Chef spoke up feeling ignored. "Just to whip up this 'cheesebo' of yours then, shall I?"

Archer beamed. "Great! You get started! The longer we can hold off withdrawal the better!"

"The crew should be alright without cheese for a while," said Malcolm as he grabbed hold of Chef and pushed him out the room. "After all, it was covered in basic training; we were all warned that one of the risks of deep space travel was that one day the cheese would run out…" He slumped back into his chair.

"But we never thought it would," Hoshi whispered slumping into the chair beside Malcolm. "We didn't listen to the warnings…oh why didn't we listen!"

Archer sighed. "It'll be alright. We'll be alright…if all else fails…we can dilute the squirty cheese…run the ship with a skeleton crew, keep the others in their quarters for safety." He ran a hand through his hair and returned to his seat. "Then, if everything else fails, we have," he took a deep breath, "Rostov. He's the only one on the crew who can survive without cheese. He's our only hope."

"No," said Phlox suddenly, coming out from where he had remained unseen in the corner. "There is…_another_."

All eyes moved to rest on Phlox, the atmosphere in the room could be cut with a knife. "Are you serious?" Trip whispered.

"No," Phlox beamed. "Just one of my little jokes! Trying to lighten the mood you see, I was making reference to that delightful film on at Movie Night last week."

T'Pol took Phlox aside before the others could jump him. "Doctor, I believe we need a discussion about the appropriateness of humour in the workplace…"

Malcolm whipped round in his seat to stare at Archer. "With your permission, sir, I advise me and my team search everybody's rooms for cheese. I know that there's been a Black Cheese Market running on board, I'm certain I can beat – er…take the cheese from them with the utmost politeness as befitting a senior officer."

Hoshi stared at Malcolm suspiciously. "How do we know that your team won't just keep the cheese for themselves?"

Malcolm's mouth dropped open. "Are you suggesting…? My men…? How _dare_ you! After all we've been through! I am simply – "

"I apologise," Hoshi cut in tiredly. "It's been a long day…"

Archer sighed. "If all goes to hell, Rostov is our only hope –" He glanced at Phlox, daring him to make another joke. "- We need him up here to apprise him of the situation."

Trip raised his hand. "Cap'n…we might have the tiniest problem there."

Archer frowned. "What do you mean?"

Trip hesitated, and glanced at Phlox. "Since the cheese heist, Rostov's been…"

"Doolaly-tap, insane, spaced out, bonkers, bananas, a few crumbs short of a full biscuit," Malcolm supplied helpfully. "Not at one with his inner officer."

"I get the idea, Malcolm!"

Phlox stepped forward, albeit slightly more timidly than last time. "I think what Mr Tucker and Mr Reed are trying to say is that Ensign Rostov has been resolving some of his issues with cheese, however this has had some unforeseen side effects…"

Trip nodded fervently. "Say one word to him about cheese and he…he…"

"He what?" Archer asked desperately.

"Freezes," Trip ended lamely. "He freezes, rocks back and forth on his feet and then smiles like he's just erased the past few minutes of his life."

"It's disturbing," Hoshi added.

Archer buried his face in his hands. "I need to think. Meeting adjourned."

_Captain's Log: Stardate…still unknown:_

_We are in serious trouble. We are in the middle of the biggest cheese crisis since the cheese famine of 2150 and the only person who isn't affected will freeze and start rocking the second cheese is mentioned in anyway._

_How has he survived!_

_Chef unsuccessfully created a 'cheesbo', the stench is so foul no one will touch it, with the exception of Lieutenant Reed who announced it tasted like strong stilton. Chef's supplying him with more in the hope that at least one person will still be able to function after the crew are confined to quarters._

_I have been toying with another option however, but only as a last resort…._

"No, I can't do it."

Archer sighed. He'd been expecting this. "Trip, please, we're running out of options, the rest of the senior crew have already agreed to this, this is only a last resort…" He trailed off as Trip disappeared round the warp engine, he followed him. "It's going to be diluted; it won't be like last time."

Trip shuddered and closed his eyes. "You don't know what last time was like…I can't do it, Jon, I'm sorry…" With that Trip turned away and stormed off.

Rostov appeared out of nowhere at Archer's elbow. "Do you need something, sir?"

Archer ran a hand through his hair. "Just cheese, is that – oh for crying out loud, Rostov!"

Rostov rocked for another few minutes before smiling benignly at Archer. "Do you need something, sir?"

Archer stared at him for a long while, till Rostov scooted away looking decidedly nervous, but had Archer imagined it, or did Rostov smirk at him before disappearing?

Shaking his head Archer turned in the direction Trip had stormed off in, and hurried off, trying desperately to ignore his growing headache.

Trip wouldn't be the only officer on the squirty stuff.

0000

Malcolm drummed his fingers against the phase pistol resting on his hip. The cheesbo had worked…temporarily, but its effects were minimal. So he had resorted to wandering the ship looking menacing, hoping that the unspoken threat of a severe beating would coax out whoever had taken the cheese into doing something stupid.

So far it hadn't worked.

But Malcolm had faith.

"Lieutenant Reed, you look lost."

Malcolm grunted and glared at Rostov. "I am not lost, I know exactly where I am, I am here, and you should be in Engineering."

Rostov smiled benignly. "Yes sir, I was just taking a little break."

Malcolm eyed him suspiciously. "Cheese."

Malcolm watched as Rostov froze. Rostov blinked a few times and smiled, "Bye sir."

Malcolm smirked and marched off in the opposite direction, nearly colliding with Travis.

"Sorry, I didn't see you," said Travis cheerfully.

Malcolm looked up at him. "You look happy…almost, too happy…" His eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't by any chance be harbouring any stolen delights of cheesy goodness, would you?"

Travis shifted slightly, an innocent expression on his face. "Nope, I wouldn't happen to be harbouring any stolen delights of cheesy goodness. But I do have a message from the Captain; he wants to see us all straight away."

They moved swiftly to the chosen meeting place. Archer looked up as they entered. "Good, you're all here."

"What's going on?" Trip asked, looking visibly uncomfortable.

Archer sighed and looked at them all gravely. "We have two days till the crew suffers massive withdrawals, and five days until help arrives."

There was a shocked silence, outside the doorway, someone smiled in satisfaction then stealthily crept away to a safer distance.

"Rossie," she whispered. "Time for phase two."

Away in the galley Rostov nodded. "See you later." He crawled through the secret panel he and his…mutual acquaintance had made to avoid the security team.

He crawled over to the large box marked 'HAZARDOUS!', 'WARNING: FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY!', and pulled it open. Rostov removed the cans of squirty cheese within and added it to the emergency diluted squirty cheese mix made by chef earlier.

Grinning, he replaced the empty cans and crept back out of the storeroom. He activated his comm. "Rostrov to Strout. It's done." He closed the comm. link and walked past the security guards, waving jovially as he passed.

_Captain's Log: Stardate…today:_

_The crew have entered into withdrawal, the first crewman – woman I should say – down was Ensign Strout, she collapsed in the armoury this morning. Since Strout went down we've had 5 more reported cases of extreme withdrawal. Crewman Baker, Lieutenant Wootten, Ensign Dawson, Crewman Gough and Crewman Stonebrook. All have been confined to quarters; there is nothing we can do for them now._

_At this rate the entire crew will be out of commission by tomorrow. The Senior Staff members have been informed they will have to resort to the special squirty cheese mix Chef made._

_I only hope it's enough…_

"Sir, Ensign Ramirez… reporting for duty," a young ensign ground out, leaning heavily against the wall for support.

"Ensign, you look terrible," said Malcolm from his position on the torpedo.

"Only as bad as you, sir," Ramirez gasped.

"Archer to Reed." The comm. beeped urgently.

Malcolm stretched out and prodded the comm. "Reed here."

"SOMEONE'S DOGNAPPED PORTHOS!"

"I'll look into it, Captain," said Malcolm twitching slightly.

"Look into it _**NOW!** _Lieutenant."

Malcolm groaned. "Yessir."

He glanced over at Ramirez. "You know what to do?"

Ramirez nodded. "Watch the armoury, and if I faint, to try not to hit the torpedoes."

"Good man," And with that Malcolm slowly staggered from the room.

Malcolm semi-crawled to the bridge, stepping over twitching, muttering members of the crew as he went. Some reached out to him, calling out for Edam or praying that he hurry up and beat ten kinds of crap out of the person who had taken the remaining stores of cheese.

When he finally reached the bridge, Archer all but dragged him out. "Sir, really, I can walk," said Malcolm trying to block the severe annoyance from his voice.

"Porthos has been _dognapped_," Archer hissed. "Find him!"

Malcolm wrenched himself free of Archer's tight grip, praying that he didn't in turn tumble backwards onto his backside. Archer stared at him with a manic look in his eyes. "Find them," he whispered softly, "find them, and bring them to me."

"Yes sir," said Malcolm tiredly. As if he didn't have enough to worry about, without Porthos to add to his misery. Although, as random brain cells started to fire he suddenly remembered the part Porthos had played when the cheese had been nicked from the stores by Rostov.

Malcolm snapped to attention. "I'll make it priority, Captain!"

Archer nodded and withdrew a can from his pocket; it was Chef's squirty cheese concoction. Malcolm took it wordlessly.

"It's come to this," Malcolm sighed, staring at the can.

Archer nodded. "I've asked Chef to distribute the cans amongst the senior officers."

Malcolm raised the can to his lips, closed his eyes and depressed the nozzle. The effect was instantaneous, Malcolm visibly jerked as the e-numbers hit his system.

"Malcolm?" Archer asked cautiously.

"YES SIR!" Malcolm bellowed, snapping to attention.

"Are you alright, Lieutenant?" T'Pol asked from her perch at the Science station.

"I'M PERFECTLY FINE, SUBCOMMANDER!" Malcolm barked back. His muscles twitched and he grinned causing Archer to involuntarily back away.

A few commando rolls later Malcolm had left the bridge, leaving silence in his wake,

T'Pol gracefully staggered over to Archer, and took his remaining squirty cheese can. Archer watched as she opened the can and sniffed it's contents. "This is undiluted," she announced seconds later. "It appears Chef's mixture has been tampered with."

All eyes swivelled round to stare at the turbo-lift door.

"Aww hell," Archer sighed. "He'll probably the kill the dirty low down dognapper before I can…"

_Captain's Log: Stardate…God I don't care anymore:_

_Our situation is desperate, three-quarters of the crew is out for the count, and to make matters worse my security is jacked up on the Big C and is roaming the ship in the manner of Rambo, obliterating anything in his path. Last reports have him moving at speed through the Jefferies tubes and the discarded uniform outside the turbo lift suggests that he's not fully clothed either…_

_More importantly, my poor beloved dog Porthos has been dognapped by a member of the crew, I only hope Malcolm doesn't kill them before I can take the…proper action…_

Trip looked up from the console he was working at in Engineering. "Hello?" he called cautiously.

There was the tiniest creak of the deck plating, somewhere off to his right. Trip moved away from the console leaning heavily against the wall, trying to ignore the pounding headache of withdrawal.

"Hello?"

Malcolm appeared behind him, his hair sticking up in all directs, grease smeared across him, wearing nothing but his uniform trousers and a vest, both of which were ripped. "Trip," he hissed.

Trip jumped a mile and whipped round to face him. "Jesus Malcolm! You scared the life outta me!"

"Have you seen it?" Malcolm hissed.

Trip blinked. "Seen what? What's wrong with you? Why do you look like that? What's happened?"

Malcolm waved the squirty cheese can. "I've got to find Porthos, then I can find those last dregs of cheese and at least keep some members of the crew functional enough to man the ship till help arrives!"

Trip stared at the can swinging backwards and forwards in Malcolm's hand. He raised his gaze to look at his friend; the maniac far off look was there in his eyes. "You didn't have to do this," Trip whispered, "There must've been another way."

"Got to save the ship, do my duty," Malcolm muttered quickly. "Have you seen the damn dog or NOT!"

Trip shook his head and looked into Malcolm's eyes, there was a kind of hungry desperation staring back out at him, Trip shuddered involuntarily. Malcolm blinked once then raced off, disappearing as quickly as he'd arrived.

Strout watched as Malcolm raced past her; it almost hurt to see the boss like that, but perhaps not as much as it would hurt if he got his hands on her. She moved and hit the comm. "Strout to Rostov."

"Yes?"

"I've gotten rid of all the cheese; you can let the dog go."

"Understood."

She walked back to her quarters quickly, making sure to avoid any still moving members of the crew. Once the withdrawal period was over she was sure they would all be thanking her, being no longer dependant on cheese.

"Strout? I thought you had been confined to quarters?"

Strout whipped round only to see Travis, she sighed. "Look! Dairylea!" she exclaimed, pointing.

"Where –" Travis turned and Strout punched him, in his weakened state Travis hit the floor and stayed down.

Strout sighed again and moved to grab Travis' hands. Now, on top of removing the crew's dependency on cheese she was also going to have to lug a body around and stow it somewhere until her plan had succeeded.

Over in his quarters Rostov sighed. Porthos was viciously chewing on his boot, and Rossie couldn't be bothered to kick him off. He felt miserable. He was sure he had done something terrible by taking down the entire crew.

Even though he knew that he had tried to get rid of all their cheese before he was sure that this time he was doing something wrong.

After all, his attempted removal of the cheese was a crime of passion and an obsession with map making on the ships computer. Done solely because he felt left out and ignored by the crew.

This, now this was carefully planned out, he hadn't realised just how easy it would be when Stephanie Strout approached him, or how much guilt he would suffer. Not to mention having to remember to freeze up every time someone mentioned cheese, it was tiring.

At his feet Porthos growled, Rostov leaned over and opened the door. Porthos dropped Rostov's boot and raced off. Rostov sighed and rubbed the teeth marks, now he felt really lonely, lonely and guilty.

He tapped his comm. "Rostov to Commander Tucker."

"What is it, Rossie?"

Rostov closed his eyes. "I've been manipulated into doing something bad, Chief…"

"What? What have you done?"

"It was…" Rostov paused, could he do this? Could he do this and hope they arrested him quickly before Strout got to him? "It was Strout, sir, me and Strout, we did it."

There was a strangled cry on the other end of the comm. and a new voice screeched over the line, "You weakling! You utter pathetic little weakling! When in the name of all things unholy did you decide to gain a conscience? Christ, Rossie, as if I didn't have enough to do I've now got a pile of bodies in the cargo bay! Now you do your job, and let's have no more of this conscience crap, you don't need one."

Rostov leapt back from the comm. before sighing resignedly. "Yes ma'am."

"Now I need you to come drag Tucker's body to the cargo bay, I've got Travis stashed there too, but he's tied to a chair watching water polo so he shouldn't be much of a problem." There was a pause. "Oh, and Rossie? You'd better get moving because, you know, it's just me and you against Starfleet Cheese Addicts United, and if you decide you really can't go through with this, I will personally make sure you spend the rest of your life milking goats in deepest Siberia."

Rostov swallowed. "Yes ma'am, understood."

Dejectedly he left his quarters and walked straight into Malcolm, who had Porthos in his arms. "We meet again, Mr Rostov," Malcolm drawled, stroking the dog.

"Lieutenant," Rostov managed, attempting to keep the terror from his voice. Suddenly realising his future involved things of an extremely unpleasant nature.

Malcolm looked deep into Rostov's eyes, grinning, one hand casually stroking Porthos. Rostov thought he was going to faint.

"You've now got three chances to tell me where the cheese is," said Malcolm, his tone suggesting his inner homicidal maniac was just itching to get out and play.

Rostov paused for a moment, he considered life milking goats in Siberia, then he considered the unhinged officer before him, it was the can poking out of Malcolm's pocket that eventually prompted him to lie.

"Strout has it," he said immediately.

Malcolm laughed, and setting Porthos down, slung his arm round Rostov's shoulders. "Second chance, Rossie m'boy, where's the cheese?"

"Strout has it," Rostov whispered.

"Strout is a member of my team," Malcolm hissed pulling Rostov into a headlock. "If she has the cheese she will already have disposed of it, I've taught her too well for her to make amateur mistakes. Of course if she's done that I'm going to be very displeased, and you don't want me to be displeased do you?"

Rostov let out a strangled squeak; Malcolm squirted more cheese into his mouth, swallowed, took a deep breath then screamed "NOW TELL ME WHERE THE CHEESE IS BEFORE I USE YOUR ENTRAILS TO REDECORATE THE WALLS!" He paused. "If you wouldn't mind."

Rostov fainted; Malcolm rolled his eyes and dropped Rostov unceremoniously to the ground.

"Go to Archer," he told Porthos.

Porthos barked once then ran off.

_Captain's Log: Stardate…:_

_Today has been a…bad day._

_Porthos has been returned to me, Malcolm left me a hurried comm. message, something about Rostov and Strout._

_But now Trip and Travis have gone missing, T'Pol is meditating to stop herself going insane, Phlox has holed himself up in Sickbay and Hoshi is rocking backwards and forwards muttering to herself._

_THIS IS NOT CONDUCTIVE FOR A WORKING STARSHIP!_

Trip groaned, his head was killing him and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why he could hear quiet weeping to his left and the sounds of a water polo match echoing ominously round whatever place he'd was in.

He cracked one eye open, and saw Travis beside him.

"Can't…watch…anymore," Travis wept quietly.

"It'll be over soon," Trip mumbled.

"It'll never be over," Travis whispered hysterically. "They have the final to play next!"

Trip heard a door open, then close again. "Hello?" he called.

The darkness didn't answer him.

The comm. beeped. "Archer to Tucker."

It beeped again. "Archer to Tucker."

It beeped a third time. "Trip! Now is not the time to go AWOL!"

The comm. fell silent.

Trip glanced at Travis again, then tried to move. It was only then he noticed that he was tied to a chair. "Huh," he said. "That's annoying."

He heard the sound of a door being opened again, followed by footsteps. Strout came into his line of vision.

"Sorry about this," she said not sounding sorry in the slightest. "But I couldn't have you ruining my plans when I was seconds away from completion."

"You stole the cheese," said Trip slowly.

Strout rolled her eyes. "No, Rostov stole the cheese and put it in the airlock. I just emptied the airlock." Seeing the look on Trip's face she added: "It's all about delegation."

She shot Travis a withering look. She opened her mouth to speak then stopped, and looked around slowly.

"How could you?" Trip hissed. "You've taken down the entire ship! What if we were attacked? None of the crew would be able to do anything."

"Shut up, sir!" Strout snapped, turning her attention to the shadows. "You're here…aren't you, Boss."

Trip listened to the silence, marvelling at how anyone jacked up on the Big C could remain silent for more than three seconds, before remembering the stealthy way Malcolm had snuck up on him in Engineering.

"Get her, Mal!" He yelled. "That she-demon flushed your Stilton!"

"How could you, Strout!" A voice echoed out from the shadows. "We worked together, we shared cheese together, I taught you all I knew, how could you betray me and the rest of the armoury?"

"Boss, surely you can see the tactical disadvantage with being addicted to cheese," Strout began, her eyes desperately seeking the location of the voice within the shadows.

"You flushed **_my_** Stilton."

"For you, for the sake of everyone," said Strout emphatically. "Why the hell can't you people see I was doing this for everyone! You all need some serious mental help! And especially you, Boss!"

"I don't need mental help," Malcolm sounded vaguely annoyed.

"So normal people make like Rambo around the ship then?" Strout asked scathingly. "Seriously, there are some major issues aboard this ship and the cheese thing is just the tip of the ice-berg. I was the only one smart enough to try and get this stupid crew straightened out, and do it without any of the traditional bad guy pitfalls."

Malcolm shot her, and stepped out the shadows. "Yeah, you were doing pretty well up to the point you started the monologue." He shook his head and twitched.

Trip blinked. "Malcolm? What happened to the screaming psychopath I was hearing so much about earlier?"

Malcolm smiled dreamily. "That's behind me now, I've embraced my angry nature –" He squirted some more cheese into his mouth "- I love you guys."

Travis started sobbing, Trip felt like joining him.

_Captain's Log: Stardate a bright and shiny new day:_

_We've been saved! After Strout was apprehended by Malcolm the supply ship from Earth arrived and we were able to get the crew up and about. It was a close run thing, but we made it._

_Malcolm spent a few days detoxing but he's back to his loveable old self, meaning he's awkward and paranoid._

_It's good to have things back to normal._

_As for Strout and Rostov, well, I forgave Rostov, the poor kid couldn't last out against Strout, and Strout, well, let's just say she'll be seeing a lot of Siberian Goats in her future…_

_End Log._

**000 It'd be nice if you reviewed now hint hint :P 000**


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